AP Latin Literature Cancelled -- Please Add Your Name

[Andrew Reinhard]

Salve,

As many of you know, AP Latin Literature is being cancelled, although AP Vergil will remain in place for the immediate future. Please read the letter from the AP in the news section on the right and the letter from Ronnie Ancona in the Blog, and if you feel strongly about keeping the AP Latin Literature program alive and active in the United States, please add a comment to this post with your name and school affiliation attached. I will collect these in preparation for what is sure to be a counter-offensive by some of the leading lights in US Classics education. Thanks for adding your names to the list.

Andrew Reinhard
Director of eLearning
Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers

[Andrew White]

As epic as Vergil is, he will never make the class as fun as Catullus does. I do not want my siblings to miss out on the opportunity to study him.
Good luck stopping this.

Andrew White
Classics Student
St. Olaf College

[Emily Debenham]

I'd like to add my name to this petition.

Emily Debenham
Latin Teaching B.A.
History Teaching B.A.
Brigham Young University
Provo, Utah

[iluvyelowdresses]

I think that this test is very beneficial to the people taking it. Since it requires you to read various authors, it broadens your scope of knowledge. I know some people might not read those books if not required, and by that, not learning new things. I know many people in my Latin class alone like the idea of reading more than one book and analyzing those separately then reading one and having almost the same analyzations for each part. Please, keep the AP Latin Literature test, I know many people still want it, and it would be a shame to take that away.

Katy Ceisel
Northside College Prep
Chicago, IL

[Al]

Hi, I would like to add my name to the petition.

Andrew Lam
Weston High School
Weston, MA

[Evan]

Adding my support

Evan Thomas
BUA
Boston, MA

[Brent]

Please place my name on the petition.

Brent Wade Smith

[KT]

The termination of the AP Latin Literature is a great shock. I took four years of Latin in high school and was very happy with my decision. Without AP Latin Literature, I would not have been able to take a fourth year of high school Latin. Many students are motivated to learn Latin because of the available AP classes (e.g. myself). As stated in an earlier posting, canceling AP Latin Literature will reduce student registration for Latin classes.
Not only that, but AP Latin Literature is a great opportunity for students to test their Latin skills. AP Virgil is difficult, but the material only covers one author, one book, and one writing style. AP Latin Literature, however, provides different authors (Catullus alone varies in style from poem to poem, while Cicero's rhetoric is eloquent and skillful) and is much more challenging. With my limited Latin, I found studying Virgil to be much simpler than Latin literature. Studying AP Virgil can not replace the missed opportunities of AP Latin Literature.
Latin class is a wonderful class to study the classics, a valuable ancient language, and the English language. Terminating the AP Latin Literature test will maim the classics academia. There will be fewer students, fewer classes, and perhaps fewer teachers. Not only that, but many students will be denied the study of the rich and wonderful rhetoric of ancient Latin authors--Virgil alone cannot replace that rich diversity. The classics world has been expanding; but with the cancellation of AP Latin Literature, that progress will be crippled. In the interests of academia and the love of the classics, AP Latin Literature must not be canceled.

Khanh Than
University of Illinois
Student

[Melanie Rund]

I support this petition!

Melanie Rund
Undergraduate at Miami University
Oxford, OH

[Jennifer]

I only got to Latin 3 in High School but it was my favorite class. If i hadn't taken 2 years of Spanish I know AP Latin Lit would have been a wonderful option. I fully support this effort!

Jennifer Garlick
former Hayfield Secondary School Student
Currently at George Mason University
Alexandria, Virginia

[Emily Schubeler]

I think it would be best for high school teachers and students to have more than one option, as I'm sure it encourages more participation; thus I support the petition.

Emily Schubeler
Undergraduate
Miami University

[Rebecca Straley]

Please add my name to the petition


Rebecca Straley
Student
Berkeley Preparatory School
Tampa, FL

[chocolastiletto]

As a proud product of nine years of Latin, including the AP Latin Literature exam, I feel that this is a huge mistake. Not only will it deprive a language of new students, not only will it encourage the College Board and other testing agencies to focus on profits instead of on education, but mostly, canceling the program would mean how many thousands of students that never meet Lesbia, or how many kisses to give a lover.

Judith Barr
Archaeology major, Bryn Mawr College (2009)